Yippee, we found a house. For two days Melissa and I were ushered around by a "transition specialist", Heide. Heide took us to 4 or 5 houses, all located in or near the awful-named town of Unterschleissheim, just northeast of Munich, near the airport and where Microsoft has its headquarters. In the end it came down to a decision between LoHof, a 'burb of Untershleissheim, and the Munich neighborhood of Moosach. Moosach had the cachet of a Munich address, a nicer house and nearer to an S-bahn stop, but in the end we opted for the convenience of minimizing our daily driving.

Not that we "settled". The house has ample room for us and for guests and a large back yard. Best of all it has 4 bathrooms, which I hope means I no more must bear the pounding on the door and cries of "Daaadddyyy" just when I've got business to attend to.

The layout is similar to all houses we saw: 4 stories (including finished basement), 4 bedrooms on the second floor and one on the top floor with a spiralling marble staircase, perfect for cracking little toddler skulls, connecting all floors. Oddly, German houses have no closets and, odder still, no guaranteed kitchen.